Chapter 3: The Bad Boy

When Kate was in junior high, grades 7 to 10 in the Philippines, students were divided into sections based on their academic performance. First, the sections borrowed the names of the planets in the solar system, then flowers, then chemical elements (or at least the most precious metals) and finally scientists. Luckily, Kate and her friends always managed to land the top sections. And so, she was in 7-Mercury, 8-Sampaguita, 9-Platinum and 10-Einstein.

It was certainly debatable whether Mercury was better than Earth by being closer to the sun, or whether platinum was more precious than gold or palladium; to say nothing of there-is-no-disputing-tastes themes like flowers and Albert Einstein. But then again, the practice of dividing students based on anything would raise even more questions, so nobody asked how the school admin came up with the section names.

Josh and his gang, who called themselves The Retaliators (original Filipino: Resbakers), mostly belonged to the same sections back in junior high and suffice it to say that Kate rarely saw them.  

Kate only barely tolerated Josh’s high school gang activities. She thought it smacked of immaturity. But then her heart would oddly speed up every time she saw Josh riding to school on his dark-blue-and-white Ducati and wearing the black helmet with a cute emo skull sticker. And when he offered to drive her home one day, her knees felt weak and threatened to buckle under her. All her friends advised against it and insisted they just wait for the public-transport jeepney or walk 3 miles to Bayan (literally “Town”), where most students lived. They usually did that to avoid the cramped jeepneys and save the nine-peso fare.

“It’s too hot to walk,” Josh said. “UV’s gonna damage your skin. I’d hate for that to happen.”    

Against all logic and the alarm bells ringing inside her head (she had never ridden a motorcycle in her life, only a public-transport "tricyle" or auto rickshaw, which had a side car), Kate answered breathlessly: “All right.”

As he gave her his only helmet and fastened the strap delicately under her chin, she thought he was confidently intimate and got a blast of his designer cologne, which was perfect for the weather in the tropics. She also thought he could be gentle if he wanted to, contrary to what everybody expected of him.

He tilted the motorcycle so she could lift herself. At first, Kate was undecided between straddling the passenger seat and sitting with both her legs on one side. Josh helped make up her mind by saying she’d enjoy the ride more if she could feel the wind blowing in her face, which was not a terrible idea considering that the skirts of CITS-HS girls (and those in most Catholic schools) are one to two palm-widths below the knees. Heels no more than one inch tall and no knee-high socks, period.

Her heart was beating so hard she worried he might feel it through her middy blouse and the Adidas jacket on his back. As the wind whipped hard against them and her arms tightened around his abs, he didn’t shout back at her to try and make awkward conversation. Instead, he let her savor the moment; the thrill. But she also thought he drove slower and more carefully on her account.

All the while what occupied Kate’s mind was the fact that people were looking at them from the jeepneys they passed by. Some jeepneys were full of schoolmates from various grades. At one point as they rode parallel to a jeepney, several seniors who were inside, presumably friends of Josh’s, cheered and whistled at them through the windows. They acted rowdily and did whatever they pleased. Josh flashed a finger gun at them and did a silent “pow” before overtaking.

That evening, Kate’s friends couldn’t wait to bombard her with questions. Her Messenger and phone inbox blew up with teasing and congratulatory messages. The fact that the rumor mill revolved around her made her glow with pride and feel like the prettiest girl in school. She was on grade 11 after all and Josh was arguably the coolest 12th-grader. 

It was a match of polar opposites. But Kate didn’t care because, the heart of the matter was, she saw the potential for Josh to change. She even thought she could be the catalyst for that change. She certainly felt it was her job.

The next day, Josh offered to drive her home again and, what touched Kate more than anything else, he also bought a bottle of sunscreen for her in case she said no. He needn’t have because she readily accepted his invitation. And then, the day after, he whipped out a purple helmet from behind him with a similar emo skull sticker, only girly. And for all the following days since, he became her personal chauffeur even though Kate always asked to be dropped off a couple of blocks away from her house. She felt she wasn’t ready to introduce him to her parents. She could never tell him but she was kind of embarrassed.

Josh sometimes waited for her to be finished with a special group work or with her duties as Student Council secretary. She would pack a fresh set of civvies so she could change and spray herself with the perfume that Josh gifted her on their first monthsary. They also sometimes took detours to drink soda and eat French fries at fast food chains (but not the diner where her ma worked) or hang out on breathtaking hill overlooks that were slowly being developed into resort-subdivisions.

During those intimate moments, Kate learned a great deal about Josh. She realized it hadn’t been easy being lumped in the lower sections. There were a lot of negative influences and, worse, a great deal of peer pressure. Even if a student wanted to study, he would be dissuaded by his classmates. And the effects stuck till senior high as evidenced by the fact that most of The Retaliators had selected the Technical Vocational Livelihood (TVL) track. 

Josh thought that by being the leader of his gang, he was actually saving everyone from bigger trouble. At least he was able to keep the less predictable members in check. Josh confessed he was sometimes scared of the members and it gave him enormous pressure to maintain his leadership. His being in a relationship with Kate, for instance, raised concerns about his becoming soft and unfit to lead. She made him look weak.

“I guess you’re sort of my Kryptonite,” Josh told her.